An attempted antidote to the More Means Worse argument used in higher education

Month: January 2017

Watching the long sessions of the committee stage in the House of Lords can be painful. The Lords try to propose ‘probing’ amendments, teasing out the issue and suggesting a solution. After the excitement of a division on the first amendment on the first day, the Government has settled into a pattern of either saying that they’ll write to the proposer, or that they’re just not minded to include the amendment. There are over 500 on the latest list of amendments, very few of the non-government ones will make it on.

What might be worrying the government is that an amendment requiring them to exclude international students might get passed. It’s clear how few supporters of their approach they can find in the Lords. A debate before Christmas saw only Lord Green (of migration watch) supportive of their stance, and in the committee stage even Conservative peers have taken to mocking them.

Take Lord Patten, he’s added his name to an amendment to prohibit students being included in migration targets. He said:

My Lords, my default position is always to try to be helpful. That is one reason why I was so pleased to support this very important amendment to this legislation. How can I be helpful? First, we know that having now shaken off the chains of membership of the European Union, and having turned our back on a millennium of introverted, insular history, we have become “global Britain”. It would be extraordinary if, having become “global Britain”, we were to prevent the huge numbers more of international students coming to study here. It has been said again and again in this debate that our higher education system is one of the jewels in our crown. It is not surprising, therefore, that so many other people want to enjoy its benefits.

The House of Lords doesn’t go for humour very much, but it’s clear that Lord Patten was teasing his front-bench colleague.

Lord Willetts wasn’t adverse to teasing either. He has been pretty staunch in defending the HE Bill, but not here. He said:

As my noble friend Lord Patten displays such a close familiarity with Conservative slogans, let me add a second—one of the great Brexit slogans, “Take back control”. I do not see why our migration policy should be determined by the United Nations. No other country says its policy should be determined by how the United Nations has chosen to define immigration. If we want to take back control, I do not see why we should allow our policy to be determined by the United Nations. We should take back control of our migration policy and set it in accordance with our national requirements, rather than allowing this dangerous, global institution to decide who we should or should not count as migrants. As well as being about global Britain, the excellent proposition from the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, is about taking back control.

Viscount Younger, as is his way, repeated all the Government’s assurances – that there was no cap and no plan to limit the number of genuine students (note how ministers now always stress ‘genuine’).

Lord Lucas, who has been very engaged on this bill, intervened to ask about Amber Rudd’s speech from October:

My Lords, can my noble friend confirm, as I gather from his speech, that the proposals made by the Home Secretary in her speech to the Conservative Party conference in relation to students are no longer being proceeded with?

But, sadly, the answer is no – we still await the ‘consultation’ – including those worrying ‘tougher rules for students on lower quality courses’.

My understanding is that during that speech she undertook to go ahead with the consultation, as I have made clear.

The Lords are likely to back an amendment to the bill, and there’s a slim chance there are enough Tory MPs who oppose students being counted as migrants that it might pass there. But the Government should be more positive. As maniacal executive orders issue forth from the White House, here is an opportunity to expand one of our more successful export industries – tge education of a globally engaged cohort of students. This will prove we are ‘global Britain’, not ‘little Britain’.

Records reveal the arrangements for vice-chancellors to have private dinners with the Prime Minister in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Viewed as an opportunity for an exchange of views, papers show the careful preparation by civil servants for these encounters.

Occasioned by student unrest, Harold Wilson met with vice-chancellors. In March 1970 the prospects of further student trouble led to another dinner invitation. Vice-chancellors would be invited to take a more robust attitude towards their responsibilities although the government might offer to shoulder some responsibility. The cabinet secretary (Sir Burke Trend) suggested that it could be contrived that the vice-chancellors would ask for the meeting, which would then focus on education policy but also include briefings by the Security Service and the Home Office (Trend 1970)

The student situation had settled down in 1973 when Edward Heath arranged to meet with a wider group of higher education leaders including vice-chancellors, polytechnic directors and heads of colleges of education.

The file shows the careful arrangements made, the sharing of agenda items and choice of participants. There are even notes between civil servants agreeing that the cost of the dinner should be met by the government. The briefing for the PM includes the key issues for each group. For the universities, he is told:

More generally, the Vice-Chancellors are concerned about the role and standing of the universities. They suspect that the Government underprize them and do not consider them “relevant” enough. (Anon, 1973)

Whereas, on the other side of the binary line:

The polytechnics are generally in good heart. They have their preoccupations. Chief among these is the need for greater clarification of their role (particularly their place in the LEA higher education sector and their relationship to the universities) and the massive expansion (trebling) of their student numbers following the White Paper.

The briefing also contains the following biographical notes with character assessments. For example, Bullock is ‘very much the Oxford Yorkshireman, plain-spoken, witty and humane’, Armitage a ‘very resourceful man with excellent judgement which he chooses to conceal under a bumbling manner’.

The record of the meeting, circulated to key ministers, records the informal discussion after dinner. They had discussed links with industry, the impact of Europe on higher education and the following discussion, which must have been uncomfortable for some.

Thinkers versus Doers

Some representatives of the polytechnics argued that a major mistake made by the universities was to value knowledge for the sake of knowledge. The great majority of graduates would pursue their careers in the world of action, not of reflection: and this basic fact should be reflected in university entrance requirements and in final examinations. At present, however, the universities’ approach was too scholastic, and as evidence of this one could point to the low status of engineers, the academic approach to the training of lawyers and the low standards of linguistic ability in this country. As a society we tended to place a lower value on doing than on thinking, whereas those responsible for higher education should always remember that the vast majority of young people would be actors, not thinkers. (Roberts 1973)

Heath’s thanks to his visitors were noted, but he continued the theme

Universities too often failed to teach their students to think straight and to recognise quality: and without a thorough training in these basic intellectual processes the next generation would find themselves unable to compete effectively with their contemporaries in other countries. To argue the British case successfully in, for example Paris or Brussels would call for the highest standards of intellect and ability. At the same time the educational system had a major part in creating a more flexible social structure in this country, so that ability, wherever it might be found, could be developed and exploited to the full. (Roberts 1973)

Heath only had another year as Prime Minister, but his Education Secretary, Margaret Thatcher, was also at that dinner and would take up these issues as Prime Minister.